Yo Ho Yo Ho

For the second year in a row, we dressed up for national “Talk Like a Pirate Day” to get free doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. You get one free doughnut for talking like a pirate and a whole dozen for dressing like a pirate. We all dressed up, so they gave us FOUR dozen doughnuts! We spent a good chunk of the day dropping off doughnuts to our friends :).

It was so cute to hear Mason saying “Ahoy matey!” He was very excited to dress up like a pirate and when I told him we were going to wear costumes he said, “I get a candy!” I didn’t understand why he thought he was getting candy, so I asked him to explain. He then said, “I get a candy in my punkin!” Ohhhhhhhhh. He thought that he was going trick or treating because he was dressed up. Smart kid. I think Halloween is going to be SO fun this year. We’re still figuring out Mason’s costume, but Kellen’s costume is adorable. I can’t wait!

Kellen at Seven Months

Most of Kellen’s sixth month of life was spent in California while we were visiting family. He loved the time with Grandma and Grandpa and enjoyed the attention from my sister and her family, especially his cousin Evelyn. He got to experience a lot of new places and things, including his first trip to the Beach and his first trip to Disneyland (more on that later). He got to go swimming lots and loved splashing in the luke warm hot tub. 

Hmmmm… so some new accomplishments as of this past month:

TEETH! At seven months Kellen has TWO cute little teefers front and center on the bottom. He has been the happiest teething baby I’ve ever seen.

Sitting up- Kellen can totally sit up on his own for long periods of time. If he’s playing with one of his favorite toys he’ll sit up for forever, but if he spots another toy over yonder that looks more appealing, he’ll topple right over and roll to get that one. He hasn’t quite figured out how to go from sitting to laying down gracefully or carefully. He just kind of hurls himself sideways and hopes for the best.

Shaking his head- Kellen shakes his head “no no no” all the time, but especially if we do it to him first. He seems to think it’s hilarious that he can do this. He shook his head most often for Grandma. That was kind of their thing.

Playing with toys- His coordination is just getting better and better each day. He is utterly fascinated by toys, especially the ones Mason is playing with. They love to both lay on the Cars carpet and play. Kellen will even swipe a car back and forth along the floor trying to kind of imitate Mason’s movements. We have these cars that I feel safe letting Kellen play with because they are one solid piece of plastic and don’t have tiny moving parts. He loves those ones and I think he feels big when he gets to hold his very own “Maytee.” It is so cute to watch Kellen play. He just seems so big to me since he started developing an interest in toys. He likes to plink on his xylophone and hammer down the pegs on his workbench. Darling.

Holding his own bottle- He loves to hold his own bottle, it makes him feel powerful to yank it out of his mouth and wave it above his head. I still prefer to cuddle him while he’s eating though, even though he’s able to feed himself. Especially because if I ever let him start feeding himself while I get Mason his food, Kellen usually eats about half and ounce, chucks the bottle, and then rolls off to play.

Kissing- Kellen gives the cutest, slobberiest, open-mouth-right-on-the-cheek kisses. We all love them so much and ask him for kisses all the day long. There has been a time or two that Kellen has chomped down on my cheek, and his little teeth are sharp! But still, I dearly love his soggy baby kisses.

Kellen’s First Trip to Disneyland

While we were in California spending time with my family, we took the boys to Disneyland with Grandpa. Spencer gets free tickets through work every year, so we try to plan our annual trip during the slow season. We ended up picking a great day to go because it sprinkled a little bit in the morning. Rain tends to keep the crowds down. The park wasn’t crowded at all and we didn’t have to wait in line longer than five minutes for anything.

We spent the first half of the day at California Adventure. The part of the park we were most excited for was Cars Land. Cars is Mason’s favorite movie, the only movie he’ll sit through actually, so we were super excited to take the boys to Cars Land. It is really cute that they have Radiator Springs set up just like the movie. Mason was so excited about all of it. He wanted to ride the “Maytee tractor ride” again and again. It does seem to be the ride he has talked about most since our trip too. Mason loves tractors.

Kellen was such a good sport all day. We were amazed that he lasted so long. One of the nice things about Disneyland is that there are TONS of rides that babies can go on. So Kellen got to ride lots of things too. But for the rides he wasn’t big enough for, or the times he was napping, we took turns going with Mason.


I think the cones are one of the cutest parts of Cars Land.

The little Heimlich caterpillar ride in Bugs Land seemed to be Kellen’s favorite ride of the day. He was looking around in total amazement and kicking his legs so hard.

We actually spent more time at California Adventure than we usually do, and only had a few hours for Disneyland, which was fine because we really did get to do a lot at both parks.

Because my family lives so close to Disneyland, we had season passes a few times when I was growing up and I have lots of childhood memories of spending time there as a family. It is always so nostalgic walking down Main Street with my little family now. Main Street is one of my favorite parts of the park because it’s just so… Disneyland-y I guess. The atmosphere Disney created really is pretty amazing.

The men had to have turkey legs for dinner of course.

We took the kiddos to Toon Town so Mason could run around and burn off some energy. He had to sit in every little car we passed. He never passes up an opportunity to “drive.” Even when we’re out and about and happen to be walking through a parking lot, Mason will point out various cars and say, “Wanna ride dat one Mom.” So he thought it was pretty neat that there were so many cars that he was free to take for a test drive. 

That little marshmallow is just so darn cute in mouse ears!

It was a very fun day and the boys slept WELL that night after playing so hard.

Wish We Were Here

It was so fun to take the boys to the ocean and let Kellen dip his toes for the first time. Like most experiences in life, Kellen was rather nonchalant about the whole ordeal. I wondered if he would dislike the cold water, but he mostly just had a look on his face like, “Why are we doing this Mom?” He was a good sport about playing in the water, but he didn’t seem to love it yet. He was, however, a great deal more enthusiastic about the sand. He spent most of the day trying to roll off the beach blanket. And ole’ party pooper me spent much of my day trying to relocate Kellen back to the center of the blanket where he couldn’t eat fistfuls of sand. He still managed to get covered head to toe, and I still think baby toes covered in sand are one of the most adorable things I have ever seen. I could just eat that little sand monster right up!

And Mason had a ball. He is so obsessed with buckets and shovels and he had so much fun getting covered in sand himself. He played happily for hours. Mason was more excited about the water than Kellen was. We played this game where we ran away from the waves right before they could splash our feet. And we played this other game where Spencer and I would count to three before swinging Mason into the water. Both of those games were huge hits and we played them again and again. 

The beach is one of my favorite places on earth. I am perfectly in love with where we live (other than the fact that it’s so far from family), but I do think Idaho could sure use an ocean. I am never so happy, so perfectly content, as when I am watching my boys play at the beach. Spencer had to drag me out of there kicking and screaming (I set a horrible example for the boys) because I am just never ready to go home. No matter how many pictures I take, it just doesn’t do the view justice. Isn’t this world such a beautiful place?